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For Craig Kamber, it was an obvious proposition: in a country
where hundreds of thousands of people flock to music festivals as
diverse as the Big Day Out, the East Coast Blues and Roots Music
Festival and Meredith, why wasn't there an accompanying music film
festival?

Providing the answer would take close to a year of diligent
legwork and preparation, but it's now arrived in the form of the
Document Music Film Festival, a touring party of concert movies and
documentaries that debuts in Melbourne this week as part of a
national schedule that its organiser hopes will become an annual
event.

"Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, yet there was no
definitive film festival to celebrate this great art form," says
Kamber, a Sydney-based, Melbourne-raised music industry veteran who
most recently served as one of the executive producers on All
Things Through Paradise, the definitive Saints box-set.

With a name taken from one of Kamber's favourite REM albums,
Document has an eclectic line-up. Among the 17 titles screening are
the hilarious anthropological study Heavy Metal Parking Lot; Don
Letts' iconic depiction of the Clash, Westway To the World;
Portishead Live: PNYC; and the acclaimed study of Wilco's personal
and commercial odyssey, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (left).

While some of the bill is commercially available on DVD or has
screened as part of previous Melbourne International Film
Festivals, Document does boast several exclusive titles, including
Mark Moormann's excellent Tom Dowd & the Language of Music, in
which the master producer (Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding) reviews
his life and work. More importantly, the festival arrives at a time
when interest in the documentary format, and more specifically
music titles, is extremely strong.

"There is definitely a renewed interest in the documentary via
people like Michael Moore," agrees Kamber. "With music
documentaries in particular, there's also now this great thing in
that people who may not be fans of a particular band are willing to
be exposed to something that's simply a great story, such as
Metallica and Some Kind of Monster, even though they may not like
the band's music."

Kamber also hopes Document will help foster the ambitions of
young Australian documentary-makers to examine our rich musical
heritage. As he points out, while he can secure films on the likes
of the Clash and Tom Dowd, there's a lack of complementary local
titles about worthy subjects such as Radio Birdman, impresario
Michael Gudinski or producer Tony Cohen.

As well as compiling box-sets on noted '80s independent labels
Phantom and Waterfront, while also penning a DIY guide for young
bands provisionally titled Don't Sell Out - Let Them Buy In, Kamber
is already planning Document's return in 2005. His ideas for
expanding it include more titles, adding regional Australia to the
schedule, and a competition for music documentary shorts in which
the finalists can be shown as part of the program.

"I hope people will have a great time," says Kamber, "but it
would be great if Document also served as a catalyst. Hopefully it
can start something."

The Document Music Film Festival is at the Lumiere
Cinema, city, from today until Sunday. For more details, go to documentmusic.com